According to the Pew Research Centre, 76 per cent of the world's population live in countries where they face ‘high or very high’ restrictions on religion or belief. Over the five years that Pew has been tracking this metric, the percentage of people that face ‘high or very high’ levels of restrictions by their government has risen from 58 per cent to 64 per cent. What is more alarming is the figure for ‘high or very high’ social hostilities (that is, acts of religious hostility by private individuals and groups, including armed conflict and terror), which jumped from 53 per cent in 2011 to 74 per cent in 2012.

The Terrorism Act 2000 recognises that religion may be a force for bad in its definition of ‘terrorism’: ‘The use or threat of action … designed to influence a government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public … for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.’ ‘Radicalisation’ is the process by which an individual becomes involved in terrorism, and it is the statutory Prevent Duty, introduced under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, that is the UK's current means of tackling radicalisation. Under the duty, specified authorities (such as schools, police, etc) must have due regard to preventing people from being ‘drawn into terrorism’. This article addresses an often-neglected area in the ongoing legal debate surrounding the statutory Prevent Duty: the religious dimension. It suggests that religion is at the centre of the Prevent Duty and that the formulation of the duty was stimulated by religion – namely, Islamist extremism and radicalisation. It will discuss the ways in which the Prevent Duty can be criticised; that it has an impact on human rights that it is potentially discriminatory towards Muslims; and that it does not clearly distinguish between permissible radical religion and impermissible harmful religion. The article concludes by suggesting that religion plays an important part in the understanding of extremism and radicalisation.

The Civil Partnership Act 2004 enables same-sex couples to enter into a status that provides very many of the same rights and responsibilities that married couples have in respect to each other and the wider community. This paper first considers the extent of the legal similarities between civil partnerships and marriage; that is to what extent civil partnerships are 'same-sex marriage' in practical effect. Secondly it considers to what extent the conceptual understanding of civil partnerships within the Act reflects the current conception of marriage within English law; that is the extent to which civil partnerships are 'same-sex marriage' in theory. Thirdly, and finally, some of the specific dilemmas for the Church of England in the light of this are considered.

It has become almost a commonplace of textbooks that English public ecclesiastical law has no application to the colonies. Halsbury states this baldly and without qualification, relying chiefly on the judgment of the Privy Council in Re Lord Bishop of Natal, a case of unquestioned significance for the development of the family of churches in the English Prayer Book tradition. But both from historical interest and with an eye to those colonies still in being, the issue is one which deserves a second glance. This article will argue that whether or not the Natal decision was right on its facts, the Judicial Committee in that case made an important distinction which later textbook generalisations—and indeed the Crown's advisers at the time—appear to have overlooked; and that other decisions, relied upon in support of such generalisations, can be supported neither from principle nor from earlier practice.

In recent years, the wearing of Islamic dress in public spaces and elsewhere has generated widespread controversy all over Europe. The wearing of the hijab and other Islamic veils has been the subject of adjudication before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on many occasions. The most recent case before the ECtHR as to the prohibition on wearing the hijab is Lachiri v Belgium. In this case, the ECtHR held that a prohibition on wearing the hijab in the courtroom constitutes an infringement of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which guarantees the right to freedom of religion or belief. From the perspective of religious freedom, the ruling of the Strasbourg Court in Lachiri is very significant for many reasons. The purpose of this comment is critically to analyse the ECtHR's decision in Lachiri from the standpoint of religious liberty.

In Spain, immigration has been one of the main reasons for a significant number of conflicts regarding the use of religious symbols. In this context, the fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the Spanish Constitution are expected to play a very important role as a criterion to solve these tensions. However, a more accurate response is provided by case law, where the variety of circumstances that surround each conflictual situation can be taken into account to reach the best solution.1

Although six bills appeared on the agenda paper for Dublin this year there was only one of real substance. Two were to correct some cross-references in previous legislation, one was of a technical nature relating to voluntary pension contributions and a further bill imposed a requirement on dioceses to provide statistics to central Church bodies when demanded.

This article presents an anthropological account of the European Court of Human Rights' approach to material religion. Focusing on a range of cases involving an alleged violation of Article 9 – the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion – in relation to such diverse religious objects as cassette players, incense, crucifixes, photographs and cross necklaces, it draws on ethnographic studies of material culture to suggest a disconnect between the Court's emphasis on religion as belief and the lived experience of embodied, sensual and object-oriented religious practice. It concludes that Article 9's privileging of the forum internum over material practice has contributed to an immaterial view of religion and religious life. Such an understanding ultimately fails to appreciate the importance of objects in the creation, expression and maintenance of religious worlds.

During the earlier part of 1993 a paper of mine was published in the Ecclesiastical Law Journal. Entitled ‘What of the Church in Wales?’, it endeavoured to suggest why the disestablished Church in Wales still maintained the characteristics of an established Church. The paper seems to have aroused much interest within certain circles of the Church of England, especially among synod members, at a time when the question of disestablishment was once more being publicly aired. The point was made to me repeatedly that disestablishment would need to be accompanied by dis-endowment, although the only reason for this assertion appears to have been the historical precedents of the Irish and Welsh disestablishments. I am not competent to write about the former, but with regard to the latter I feel that a historical examination of the events which led to the disestablishment of the Church in Wales might raise some question marks against this assertion.

It is a privilege to have been invited to deliver the Boydell Lecture and to record my own appreciation of Peter, whom I can picture now – immaculate and affable as always. He was very kind to me as a fledgling Bishop of London. There was at the time an understandable debate about whether the tradition of inviting the bishop to be an honorary bencher of the Middle Temple should be continued. Time pressures had made the connection of some previous bishops very tenuous. Peter argued that +Londin should be given a last chance and this has led as far as I am concerned to a most nourishing and instructive relationship with the Temple and those who work here. As you know, by the Queen's command I do not appear in the Temple Church as bishop but as Dean of HM Chapels Royal and the Visitor, and I relish my connection with a place which preserves memories of so many events which have shaped our nation, as well as a living choral tradition which must be among the finest in the land.

The Church of Nigeria's canon law revision of 14 September 2005 redefined the terms of inter-provincial Anglican unity from a focus on communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury to communion based explicitly upon the authority of scripture and historic doctrinal statements. This paper will examine the revision as an ecclesiastical reform connected to, yet independent from, the current controversy over human sexuality. Pertinent issues of episcope and ecclesial communion as they are affected by the canon law change will then be examined. Finally, the ecumenical implications of the revision will be discussed, with particular reference to the Anglican–Roman Catholic dialogue and the ‘continuing’ churches of North America.

Shattered Faith is the story of Sheila Rauch Kennedy's marriage and divorce from Congressman Joe Kennedy, a member of one of the best known families in the United States of America. Married in 1979 in a Catholic Church, Mr Kennedy was a Catholic while Mrs Kennedy remained an Episcopalian. Twin sons were born in 1980 and baptised as Catholics, with godparents from both Christian churches. The marriage began to unravel when Mr Kennedy was elected to Congress. Separation in 1989 was followed by divorce because of ‘irreconcilable differences’. In 1993, Mrs Kennedy received notification from the Metropolitan Tribunal of the Archdiocese of Boston, informing her of the petition lodged by her former husband to have the marriage declared null on the grounds of lack of due discretion of judgement (though whose lack of due discretion is not made clear). Shocked, and while willing to acknowledge that the marriage had failed (evidenced in a divorce), she could not accept that it had never existed as a sacrament.

On 8–9 July 2007 at Brecon Cathedral, members of the Centre for Law and Religion held an inaugural annual away day to review its work and plan long-term strategy ahead of the tenth anniversary of the Centre in 2008. The success of the LLM in Canon Law, the first degree of its type at a British university since the Reformation (set up in 1991 with the support of the Ecclesiastical Law Society), led those involved in that course and others at Cardiff Law School to recognise the need for a community of scholars dedicated to the study of law and religion. The Centre was established in the summer of 1998 to promote research and its dissemination in this field. It was established with the approval of the university and the encouragement of the Department of Religious and Theological Studies. Its activities are carried out in relation to the theory and practice of substantive law concerning religion, the focus being principally upon religious law (especially canon law) and national and international law affecting religion, with regard to their historical, theological, social, ecumenical and comparative contexts.